Just a (drunk) thought.
Most repeat forum visitors land in "talk shite" (where does your bookmark point?)
Eliminating meetup stickies
does make popular kiddie threads more visible, but if one doesn't often venture outside of 'Talk Shite', the meetup-next-door may escape them.
Even if you live in a major metro, the odds of finding a meetup are small. Only a few people even bother posting a meetup thread, even if there is a show-guest coming to their town. Moving the meetup threads to a no-traffic location will kill most of them IMHO.
Most people will not see meetups in off-Talk-Shite areas. I know that meetup threads may seem bothersome in the main (Talk Shite) forum, but
it isn't easy to promote these events, and it's more difficult now.
Someone owes me two cents.